FICS Scholarly Articles
Permanent URI for this collection
Faculty and staff research papers from the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies.
Browse
Recent Submissions
1 - 5 of 63
-
ItemAre Networks (Becoming) Conscious? Primary Materials from the 2016 CogNovo ColLaboratoire Workshop on Network Consciousness and Embodied & Distributed Cognition( 2026)These are primary materials produced during the week-long ColLaboratoire workshop in August 2016, at the University of Plymouth - Cognition Institute, as part of the CogNovo doctoral training program. Some materials were originally published on a public workshop website, now offline; others survive as original workshop files, presentations, photographic records, and later institutional press documentation. The present bundle is an archival reconstruction compiled from the original files, notes, and presentations. The original intellectual work dates to 2016; this compilation and its metadata are dated 2026 The workshop asked whether highly-connected networks—such as the Internet—could be said to be conscious, or could become conscious. It approached this question through the lenses of embodied, situated, enactive, extended, and distributed cognition. The intent of the workshop was to explore the suggestion that highly connected networks such as the Internet could be considered conscious and whether such a network might be more likely to be conscious if it had a body. It frames these questions through theories of extended, situated, enactive, and embodied cognition. The background sets out two contrasting positions. Some theories suggest that consciousness might emerge from sufficiently complex or highly networked systems. The proposal, however, notes that connectedness alone may be insufficient: a conscious agent may need to be situated within an environment, while embodied approaches to cognition emphasize the importance of a physical body. In particular, the proposal highlights the sensorimotor dimensions of embodiment and suggests that the nervous system may have evolved in relation to the need to navigate and interact safely with the physical world. The proposal organizes its questions into three broad areas: the body, the group mind, and the environment. Under the question of the body, it considers whether the Internet of Things, together with sensors, actuators, and human users, could constitute something analogous to the Internet’s hands, arms, legs, feet, ears, eyes, skin, noses, and tongues. It also raises the possibility of modeling such distributed organization on systems such as slime mold. Under the question of the group mind, it asks whether increasingly sophisticated social networks might themselves constitute conscious group minds, or alternatively function as extensions of human minds. Under the question of the environment, it asks what environment such an intelligence would inhabit and how it might interact with physical space. The proposal identifies the intended output as a research proposal built around focused research questions, a cross-disciplinary literature review, and innovative methodologies. Suggested methods include digital ethnography, big-data analytics, network analysis, visual analytics, data mining, social-media sentiment analysis, sculpture, computational modeling, and performance. Possible proofs of concept include visualizations, maps, diagrams, performances, and interactive installations. The document includes references to a broad set of readings comprising popular articles, books, scholarly articles, and online resources.
-
ItemProject Aspen: A Single-Source-of-Truth Approach to Digital Transformation in Higher Education( 2025-11)Effective data management is critical for evidence-based decision-making to achieve equitable quality education. Centralizing data from various sources enhances accuracy and institutional responsiveness, while learning analytics plays a vital role in monitoring student progress. Project Aspen, implemented at the University of the Philippines Open University’s Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, exemplifies an approach to academic digital transformation by centralizing academic and institutional data into a single-source-of-truth system. This is achieved by federating employee and student information databases into a unified repository, leveraging flexible, low-cost, no-code tools like Airtable. Real-time reporting, automated analytics, and dynamic portfolio generation enable streamlined processes, improved accountability, and flexible reporting. This paper highlights Aspen’s ability to integrate data efficiently to address fragmented reporting and redundant data entry, describing implementation challenges and key successes to suggest actionable insights for smaller institutions seeking to modernize their data infrastructures for digital transformation.
-
ItemArtscience, cultural policy, and epistemological empathy: Towards imaginaries of the future as a new commons in the Philippines((Unpublished), 2025-12-12)Who gets to imagine the future? In the Philippines, there is a governance gap surrounding this question: government agencies for science, technology, and trade drive discussion of the future around innovation, growth, and "creative industries", while the agencies for culture and the arts are mandated to focus on the past and on culture as heritage. Drawing on Justin O'Connor's proposition that culture is neither a luxury or an industry, but a foundational capability—one that equips citizens to participate in shared meaning-making and democratic decision-making, this talk argues that there is a potential for science institutions to be "safe spaces" where democratic futures are co-imagined, through artscience practiced on equal footing with cultural workers and artists.
-
ItemAmbahan ni Ambo: A Digital Experience( 2021)Ambahan ni Ambo: A Digital Experience is an initiative to adapt one of Ed Maranan’s stories into a digital platform that focuses on the experiences of each character and how these would translate in real life and give inspiration to its users to follow their example. Two frameworks have been implemented - first is to simplify content by dividing the program into age-appropriate branches that each age-group can easily manage, while the second framework focuses more on the experiences of each of the characters in the story and how readers might see their own real-life experiences with them. This research follows a perspective similar to Design Thinking and revolves around Planning, Creation, and Evaluation.
-
Item